Heaviness in My Head
by Mrs. Crocodile
Summary: Jo did not know what was wrong with her. At some point everything just stopped making sense.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any of the situations or characters of Eureka. No money is being made off this story. Please do not sue me.

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**Heaviness in My Head**

Summary: Jo did not know what was wrong with her. At some point everything just stopped making sense.

Spoilers Through: 5x06—Worst Case Scenario

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**Prologue**

_Three Months Ago . . ._

Once she was out of the lab, Jo pulled off the gas mask and finally breathed in some sweet, sweet air. After seven hours and five different experimental aerosols, the breach was finally contained. She would probably change her mind tomorrow, but today, Jo was pretty sure genetic engineering entomologists who create pesticide resistant bugs were the worst kind of people in the world.

Jo rubbed her shoulder. Make that pesticide resistant bugs who might be able to penetrate light body armor. As she walked down the hall, she peeled back her shirt from her collarbone and tried to see if she had really been bitten. Not looking where she was going, she ran straight into another person.

She started to apologize, but then she saw that it was Zane. The same Zane who kept telling her they might never see each other again. She understood why, and hell, she liked saying goodbye as much as he did, but she was getting tired of waiting to find out what decision he made. "Seriously, are you leaving or not?"

She had not meant to be that blunt. He looked a little hurt, but he covered it quickly. "I figured I'd already come this far on the whole Astraeus thing, I might as well see how that pans out."

Of course he was staying for that. It was the whole point of the pardon in the first place. "One more round before they make the final decisions."

Zane fell into step with her, going back in the direction from which he came. "Yeah, the worst round, interviews. I've never been good at endearing myself to authority types."

"Well, if you don't make it, . . . " Why was it so hard for her to say? It could just be something simple and non-committal, like, _I hope you decide to stay in Eureka anyway. _Maybe something about how boring it would be there without him. " . . . at least you'll be free to go wherever you want."

He gave her face a searching look. If he would just tell her what he wanted her to say, she would say it. But she was not going to put herself out there. She was not going to ask him to stay there unless she knew that he wanted to stay. These last few months had been hard enough on her without adding utter humiliation to the list.

His gaze did not actually stop at her face. Even though she was about 95% covered at the moment, his expression grew suggestive. "So are you heading back to your office?"

She felt a mild stinging in her shoulder again. "Actually, I think I need to get checked out by Allison. Maybe I'll see you in my office later."

His face spread into a slow smile. "Yeah, maybe."

When Jo got to the infirmary, two other members of her team, Hadley and Baxendale, were already there. Yeah, genetic engineering entomologists were at the top of her list today.

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**Author's Note: **I tried to make it clear with context clues, but in case it was not clear, this scene takes place between "Clash of the Titans" and "This One Time at Space Camp. . ."


	2. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This isn't going to be anything really long. I'm thinking four chapters (not including the prologue).

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**Chapter One**

_Present Day_

Jo had been slowly moving all of her stuff, what little of it there was, into Zane's house. The last of it came the night after all the brain swapping. It was just for a couple more weeks until her house was finished. Even though it was a little soon—okay, _way_ soon—for a trial run at cohabitation, Zane found that he did not mind having her there.

He met up with Jo at Cafe Diem, and something was off. There was a false brightness, a forced happiness that Zane had been noticing from her more and more. When they got back home and he tried to kiss her, she pulled away. "What's wrong?" he asked.

She just shook her head in response. Zane did not believe that she could still be angry about what happened that day. Was this part of his no-sex punishment? "Look, I'm sorry I lied about going to the gym this afternoon, but you have to believe me, Jo-Jo, it was for a good cause."

She sighed. "I do believe you. Fargo told me as my boss that it's better if I don't know."

Something was still wrong, and since he had no other guesses, he stuck with this theory. "I promise I'll tell you everything someday."

She shook her head. "That's not—" Then she smiled in a way that did not feel real. "Yes, you will."

Zane could not let it go at that. His top secret project with Fargo was not the problem, but something was. "What's going on with you?"

There was more head shaking and not answering. Finally, she said, "Okay, don't be mad at me."

His breath caught in his throat. He had a pretty good idea what this was now. "I can't promise that without more information."

She started to pace, and he wished she would just spit it out. Fast, like a band-aid. She stopped and turned to look at him. "I'm not sure this is working."

Zane knew she was going to say that, and it still felt like he had been punched in the gut. He wasn't mad at her though. He'd suspected for a while that she was not as into the relationship as he was. It was his first time being in that position, so he told himself that he was overthinking things. Still, he knew. Things hadn't been the same since he got back. They were together now, but they were less in sync than ever before.

His mind went back to the ultimatum he gave her a few weeks before. He'd never made one before, but he had a philosophical policy on ultimatums. You don't say it unless you're sure that you're ready to walk away. He thought he had been, but now that they were there, it wasn't so easy to let go. "In what way is this not working?"

Jo opened her mouth, at a loss for words. "I don't know. God, I don't know what's wrong with me."

She had been using that excuse for a while. If she was going to break up with him, he needed more than that. "You must have some idea."

But apparently she did not, at least nothing she wanted to share with him. She told him to get over the stuff from the matrix, so he did, but now he had to ask. "Let's put it this way. Is it that you want Carter, or is it just that you don't want me?"

"I don't know. I mean I—it's—I don't think it's either of those things. It's just—It's—" She rubbed her face with her hands. "I'm not happy."

"You're saying I don't make you happy?" He supposed that was a reason. He did not like it, but it was one.

"No, I—I didn't mean it that way. It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault."

He was not really sure what she was trying to say, so he attempted to find a question that would get to the root of the problem. "What do you think would make you happy?"

She stared off, shaking her head. Again or still, it was hard to tell at this point. She took a deep breath. "I don't know."

Zane was so sick of that answer. "Stop saying you don't know! You have to know." He certainly knew what would make him happy. "Just take a minute and think about it."

"I _have_ been thinking about it," she said with some vehemence, sounding a little like the old Jo. "For months, it's all I've thought about. I don't—" She stopped herself from saying it again, but then she changed her mind. "I don't know what I want."

She did not know what she wanted. That was probably all Zane needed to know. "Okay, well, if you're breaking up with me, you can't stay here anymore."

And then Josefina Lupo did something that he had never seen her do before; she started to cry. It freaked the hell out of him. "I mean you can stay tonight," Zane said, backpedaling, trying to make the crying stop. "I'm not going to put you out on the street."

Jo sank down onto the couch. She wiped her eyes three or four times in rapid succession. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm just, I'm not happy. And I've tried. I've tried so hard to fix it, but I don't know how." Tears welled up again. "I don't know how to make myself happy."

Maybe it was his fault. She was supposed to be out in nature figuring all this out, but he forced her to make a decision. He just had no idea it was this bad. He thought she was indecisive; he had not realized there was something actually wrong with her. He sat down next to her.

She looked down at her lap. "I don't know if I was breaking up with you. I don't know if I want to break up." She lifted her head, turning her eyes to the ceiling. " I don't know _anything_ anymore. I can't even describe it. It's not that I'm sad, not exactly; I'm just . . . lost. I don't even feel like me anymore. It's like—" She finally looked in his direction. "It's like I don't recognize myself. Does that make sense?"

"No." Zane realized that probably sounded bad. "I mean, I don't think I've ever felt that way, not even when I was in someone else's body. I might not have recognized myself in the mirror, but I still knew who I was." He wondered if this was really what she had been feeling for the last few months. "Have you talked to anyone about this?"

"You, just now." She sighed. "I'm not sure I can really talk to Carter the way I used to, and Allison . . . I don't know where I stand with Allison. She says we're okay, but I don't know if it's ever really going to be okay again." She placed her fingers over her mouth for a couple seconds, then she pulled her hand away, keeping it close to her face. "I may have lost my two best friends. And now I'm probably going to lose you too."

"Only if you dump me," Zane joked, nudging her shoulder with his. She did not respond to his attempt to lighten the mood. "I don't mean that. You're not going to lose me. Even if we break up, we'll still be friends." That was actually the exact opposite of what he decided in the matrix, but this was a completely different situation. "And you can talk to me about anything."

"Anything?" she asked, pinching and wiping her nose.

Zane had a really bad feeling that she was going to talk about Carter. He pushed a smile onto his face and nodded anyway. "Anything,"

She took a minute to gather her thoughts. "It's not that you don't make me happy; it's just that you don't make me as happy as you used to. Nothing . . . nothing makes me happy the way it used to. But it's especially hard with you. Because you were—You were the best thing that ever happened to me, guy-wise. And now we have this chance again, and I don't want to screw it up. But . . ." It was hard for her to get the words out. "I just don't feel it."

It occurred to Zane they had only been officially together for a month. He'd had a lot of relationship that only lasted one or two months, usually because he got bored. One month, and it wasn't working. It shouldn't be this hard to call it quits. But the problem was that whatever it was she was not feeling, he felt it. Even after only a month, combined with all those other months, he felt more for Jo than he had ever felt before. That wasn't important right now. "Then we should break up. Just be friends. We were good at being friends."

She nodded, agreeing. And that one move broke his heart more than anything she could have said. "You're taking this better than I thought you would."

It was getting more difficult for Zane to force a smile. It was like the muscles were getting jammed up in his neck. He pushed through it though. "I'll bounce back. I didn't want to say anything this afternoon, but if I really want to have sex, I can make that happen without you." He did not know why he said that. Was he really so petty as to try to hurt her she was clearly already hurting enough? Maybe he just wanted to see how she'd react.

She didn't react. There was nothing, no expression on her face. "I did always enjoy the sex. I mean, it—it made me happy; it just didn't last." She put her elbows on her knees and buried her head in her hands. "God, I hate that I'm talking about it in the past tense."

Zane almost offered. All it would take was a flippant comment about always being available for that, but it was a bad idea. He couldn't handle being casual with her anymore. That was one of the things he was trying to tell her with that ultimatum. If this was really over, he needed a clean break. And yet, he just promised her that she wouldn't lose him. "Look, I'm here for you, Jo, but you need figure things out. It's probably not a good time for another sabbatical, since you just got your job back, but you need to do something."

She lifted her head. "It's that 'something' that's been tripping me up."

Zane had no advice. He got up from the couch. "I'll go set up the air mattress in the spare bedroom."

Jo opened her mouth, maybe to protest, but then she just nodded. "Thanks." After a second, she added, "Thanks for being so understanding."

He actually did not understand at all. But he smiled one last time and headed for the other bedroom.

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**Author's Note: **I know that this is making Jo out to be more emo than she's been on the show. But, I mean, she's just kinda getting worse, right? So I had two weeks to work on something, that Adele song "Don't You Remember" got into my head, and this is the result.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter** **2**

Jo was not sure what she was feeling as she went to bed that night. She and Zane might be over for good this time, and she had to admit there might be a part of her that felt relieved. Zane wasn't the problem, but he wasn't the solution either. It was hard to be in a relationship that was just not working. She knew what it was like to be in love with Zane, and maybe it was better to be alone than to stay in a poor facsimile of that. But on the other hand, maybe it wasn't. The idea this might really be the end for them was truly depressing. Stay or go, it hurt either way.

She woke up in a strange room lying on a sagging mattress. It took her a second to remember the events of the night before. She was not any closer to figuring out what she felt.

When she came out of the room, Zane was already dressed and almost out the door. "Hey," he said when he saw her. "Did you sleep okay last night?"

"Yeah." She pointed to herself. "Special forces training, I can sleep anywhere. If I just think of it as the jungles of Costa Rica, the air mattress becomes a luxury."

He smiled instinctively. "You know me; I'm a giver." There was some awkwardness in the air. Zane cleared his throat. "Well, I have to get to work, that thing I can't tell you about. You good here?"

"Uh, yeah," she said again. "I guess I'll see you later." Her tone went up at the end, like maybe it was a question.

"Sure." On that vague note, he left.

He was taking it well. Maybe too well. In fact, in the end, he actually broke up with her. She did not even realize that until that morning. She couldn't even tell if he was really upset at all, or if he was just ready to move on to the next girl, like Jo had always secretly feared he would be.

Standing alone in his house in the harsh light of morning, Jo was pretty sure that this break-up was not going to make anything better. It might make things worse; she didn't know. The worst part of this, whatever this was, was the not knowing. She couldn't fix it until she knew what was wrong, what she wanted, what she was feeling. And she had no idea how to even begin to figure that out.

She used Zane's shower because all her toiletries were already in there. It felt weird to be there without him, even though she showered alone at least half the time when they were together. He was right; now that they had broken up, she couldn't stay with him anymore. It was only going to get more awkward, especially if or when he started having sex again. At that thought, she was sure that no, this break-up definitely was not going to make things better for her.

Getting dressed, she thought about the night before again. She had not meant to tell Zane all the things she told him. She had just been trying to explain, and it came up, and she couldn't hold it inside anymore. It actually felt kinda good to say those things out loud. But now, now there was no taking it back. Now, Zane knew, would always know how messed up she really was. He looked at her like she was crazy; it didn't make sense to him. Which was fair, because it didn't exactly make sense to her either.

She stopped in Cafe Diem for breakfast, but then she decided that she was not hungry. Even though, now that she thought about it, she had not really had anything for dinner the night before either. She chalked it up to an emotionally draining evening and took a Vinspresso to go.

–

When Zane got to the Section 5 lab containing the data from the matrix, Fargo was already there. The director's suit was kind of rumpled, as though he had slept in it. "Have you been here all night?"

Fargo did not really answer that. Instead he headed from one computer to another. "I have some thoughts."

Zane supposed he could understand. If it were his girlfriend whose consciousness was trapped in a computer program, he probably would not want to go home either. Not that he had a girlfriend anymore. In fact, at the moment, Fargo's relationship problems were easier for Zane to understand than his own.

His thoughts must have registered on his face, because when Fargo looked up, he asked, "Are you okay?"

Actually, no, Zane was not okay, and he did want to be able to talk about it. More than that, he wanted to be able to talk about it with Fargo specifically. And that was when he realized that, outside of Jo, _Fargo_ might be his best friend, which was weird because he was pretty sure he hated that guy nine months ago.

He wanted to be able to tell Fargo all about what happened the night before with Jo, but he knew that he shouldn't. The things she said were very personal, and he did not think Jo would want him talking about them with anyone else, especially not someone with whom she also worked. So Zane had to keep it inside. "Yeah, perfectly fine. So, what were your thoughts?"

–

When Jo told Zane that she did not know anything anymore, that was not exactly true. She still knew her job. That was the only thing that made sense to her anymore. She had slipped back into her position as security chief so easily, much more easily than slipping back into any other part of her life.

Jo needed to find a new place to stay while her house was being rebuilt, and her options were rapidly dwindling. She did not think it would be appropriate to ask one of her male subordinates, and there were not very many women on the security team. Her first choice from the small pool of candidates would be Hadley, who, as Jo thought about it, she could not remember seeing in a while.

She went by the main security office and found Shepherd manning the desk. "Do you know where Hadley is?" she asked. As the person in charge, Jo should probably be familiar with where all her people were assigned, but she was still getting back in the swing of things.

Shepherd was taken aback by the question. "Hadley? Alexa Hadley?"

Jo was not sure what the problem was. "Do you know another Hadley?"

"No, it's just . . ." Shepherd paused. "Oh, I guess you were out of town when it happened."

"When what happened?" she asked warily. Being in such a dangerous line of work, Jo was good at recognizing the telltale signs that bad news was on the way, but she still needed the details. Was Hadley dead or just seriously injured?

He hesitated. "Alexa killed herself."

That went way beyond anything Jo had prepared herself for. "What? You mean like . . ." She was not sure she wanted to say it. She lowered her voice considerably. "Like suicide?"

Shepherd shrugged apologetically. "That's what they said."

Jo had been back in Eureka for a month; how did she not know about this? "Wait, who said? What happened?"

"I—I never saw her, but I think she, uh, she swallowed a bullet." He made a finger gun and held it close to his mouth. Then he seemed to realize that was inappropriate and closed his hand into a fist. "Dr. Deacon performed the autopsy. He ruled it a suicide, and Deputy Andy signed off on it. If you want more information, you should talk to them."

This was wrong. Jo knew Alexa Hadley really well, and she was not the kind of person who would do something like that. These kind of things don't just crop up overnight; Jo would know if one of her close friends was on the verge of suicide. _A friend so close you didn't even bother to look her up for a month after getting back?_ asked a small voice in her head.

Jo took her leave of Shepherd and headed back to her office. She wanted to talk to Henry; maybe he could help her make sense of this. But she couldn't go off conducting personal business on company time, not this soon after getting her job back. Henry and Hadley's suicide would have to wait. Jo took a few deep breaths to try to get her mind back on work.

–

After work, Jo went straight to Henry's garage. She found him tinkering with one of his projects, keeping busy in Grace's absence. She hung by the door until he acknowledged her presence.

"Jo," He set aside his safety goggles with a smile. "What can I do for you?"

Jo stepped into the garage. She was not really sure how to have this conversation. "I just heard that a member of my security team, Alexa Hadley, that she . . . that she may have committed suicide."

Henry nodded with a somber look on his face. "There's no maybe about it. I performed the autopsy myself."

Jo knew it was unlikely he would make a mistake, especially considering Hadley's cause of death. "It's just that I knew Alexa, and she wouldn't . . . This doesn't make sense."

Henry sighed, giving her his sad, sympathetic grandfather eyes. He sat down on a stool and gestured for her to do the same. "Well, I'm not sure that I ever actually met her, but I can tell you that Alexa's test results showed dangerously low levels of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine and also irregular levels of serotonin and dopamine. And it is not unusual for someone with those kind of results to have suicidal thoughts."

Jo had never taken a psychology class, but it seemed to her there had to be more going on in a person's life to make them think of suicide than just some irregular levels of whatever he was talking about. She said as much to Henry.

"Not necessarily," he said. "What neurotransmitters do is they communicate messages across synapses from one neuron to another. And when a person's body stops producing enough of certain types of neurotransmitters, that person's brain is no longer able to communicate effectively. This can cause anything from chronic fatigue to loss of sex drive to even severe suicidal depression."

"So you're saying that Alexa's test results show she was severely depressed. You're saying there were probably warning signs." She knew that he had not actually said the second part at all, but it was implied. "Like maybe if I wasn't off finding myself, I might have been able to notice that there was something wrong with her?"

Henry shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. These things tend to affect everyone differently." He shook his head in a reassuring manner. "But it's unlikely something like this developed over the course of a month. If there were warning signs, you would have seen them before. Probably no one knew because she did not want them to know."

Jo appreciated his attempt to alleviate her guilt, but she still felt like she should have known. If she'd been a better friend, less wrapped up in her own drama, Hadley might still be alive. She thanked Henry for talking with her and left the garage. She just needed to go somewhere and clear her head.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

When she left Henry's garage, Jo just started driving her car with no set destination in mind. She was two hours east, somewhere in the mountains of Ochoco National Forest, before it occurred to her that it was time to head back. She did not process anything during that time; she did not do anything but drive. If the goal had been to clear her mind, it worked, but other than that, the trip did not seem to serve any purpose.

It was not until her headlights hit the sign welcoming her to Eureka that Jo remembered she had nowhere to go. In her shock over Hadley's suicide, she had forgotten all about finding a new place to stay. It was late, very late; she couldn't start calling up secondary friends at this hour. As she thought about what to do, she kept heading for Zane's house. By the time she pulled into his driveway, she knew that was the only option she really had.

It had been a while since she really had to knock on Zane's door, but it seemed appropriate tonight. There was no answer. She knocked again. Maybe he was asleep? But no, Jo was very familiar with Zane's sleeping habits, and it was still early for that. When her third bout of knocking went unanswered, she knew she had to accept that he was not home. At ten o'clock at night.

She placed her hands on either side of the door frame and considered the implications of that. Before she got very far, she heard the garage door opening. She turned to face the street, where she saw Zane pulling up on his motorcycle. Alone, thankfully.

He must have seen her standing there because he came around the front of the house instead of going in through the garage. "Locked out?"

"No." She hadn't even tried to get in. "I just got here." He seemed to be waiting for her to say more. "I, uh, I forgot to find a new place to stay."

"And you just realized that?"

Jo was not sure how much Zane really expected her make alternate arrangements that quickly anyway. "I had kind of a rough day, and I went for—" It didn't matter. "Yeah, I just realized that."

Zane gave her a long look. "Okay." He opened the door for her. "I haven't even been back since this morning, so your room is still . . ." He trailed off at the awkwardness of calling it her room. "It's still however you left it."

She followed him into the house. "Then it's okay if I stay here again?"

He started to answer and then stopped. It took him a while to settle on what he wanted to say. "For tonight? Absolutely."

With that established, they settled into a heavy silence. Zane went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Jo felt the need to say something to break the silence. "So you haven't been home all day? Where were you?"

Zane raised his eyebrows. She knew that she shouldn't have asked that; she didn't get to ask him things like that anymore. He leaned back against the counter and took a long sip of water. He gave himself a second to swallow before answering. "I was with Fargo. And you? Where were you all night?"

She wondered if he was just making small talk or if he was worried about the same things she had been. "I drove out to the mountains, just trying to clear my head."

"Like a mini-walkabout?"

Jo had not really thought about it like that, but she supposed that could have been what it was. "Yeah, sort of."

"I hope you find what you need." He placed the glass down on the counter behind him. "Well, I'm going to go to bed now. Good night."

"Night," Jo echoed as he headed off to his room. Once his door was closed, she went into the kitchen to clean up behind him. She moved his glass from the counter to the dishwasher, which took all of five seconds, and then she surveyed the room for something else to do. It looked immaculate, and Jo realized she just wanted something to distract her from that air mattress lying on the floor of the spare room that Zane used to store things he didn't really want. That was her bed, her room, her life tonight, and she couldn't avoid it forever.

She went into the room, and, like he said, everything was exactly the way she left it. She changed into the pajamas she had folded up next to the pillow, a cotton v-neck and a pair of boxers. Then she sat on the mattress and re-inflated it with herself on top, feeling the slow rise. At that point, there was nothing left to do but lie back and try to get to sleep.

–

Basically, by going into his room, Zane was hiding from Jo. As he left work that night, he'd wondered if she was going to be there. Part of him was dreading the idea of going home to his ex-girlfriend. But when he saw her car and then saw her standing outside his front door, he actually felt relieved that she had come back. He supposed that when she moved out, then it would really be over. It wasn't good to hold on like this; the fact that she was sleeping in a different room proved that it was over. The rest of this was just . . . complications.

He pull out his laptop and tried to catch up on the latest physics articles. He was having trouble concentrating, and he had not even made it through the abstract of the first article when there was a knock on his bedroom door.

He sat the computer on the dresser and opened the door to find Jo in her pajamas. "Yeah?"

"Can we talk?"

He opened the door wider. "Sure."

She hesitated for a second and then walked passed him. Zane was not sure if that was what he intended. It probably would have been better to talk out in the living room. He left the door open, not that it really made a difference since they were the only people in the house. He just didn't want her to think that he had the wrong idea here.

"I found out today that my friend . . ." Zane had to wait a while for her to finish that. Finally, she cleared her throat and said, clearly, matter-of-factly, "Killed herself. And I can't stop thinking about . . ."

This pause went on even longer, leaving Zane to make assumptions about the logical conclusion of her sentence. "About suicide?" he asked, alarmed.

"No! I would never—" She sighed and sat down on the bed. "I mean I've never thought about it before." She took a long pause. "Although sometimes. . ."

Zane want to stop her there. He wanted to tell her that he couldn't handle this. He wasn't equipped to help her with this, and he couldn't handle it personally. But apparently, at the moment, he was all she had, and he was sure that the one thing you should definitely not do in a situation like this was tell the other person that they could never talk to you abut it. So he waited to find out about sometimes.

"It's like I catch myself thinking that I don't know how much longer I can go on feeling this way. But I don't—" She paused and then said with authority. "I don't want to _die_; I just want to be better." She fell silent for a few seconds. "Anyway, no, what I can't stop thinking about is—and I know this is going to sound bad—but it's one less person that I have. And these problems with Carter and Allison might be temporary, but . . . but Hadley's definitely gone."

"Hadley from your security team?" When she said a friend, he assumed she meant someone not in Eureka. Because this was a small town, and he would know if someone had committed suicide.

"Yeah." she sounded surprised that he knew that. "I guess you would be pretty familiar with the team."

He was very familiar with the team, especially the female members. Hadley was not really the kind of woman he would notice under normal circumstances, but the thought of turning the enemy made her more interesting to him. She was always very resistant to his charms, much like Jo had been actually. He couldn't believe she was dead. "When did that happen?"

She started to answer, and then she shrugged. "Sometime while I was gone. Which means you were in the matrix. So I guess everyone just had other stuff to worry about, and . . ." She shrugged again. "Life went on."

Zane did not know Hadley nearly well enough to know whether her suicide was really that surprising. "Had she been having problems for a while?"

She pulled her legs up into a cross-legged position. "Henry says she must have been, but I had no idea. She seemed fine to me. She was a Marine, but I didn't hold that against her." She shook her head. "That's an armed forces joke. You know, the whole Army versus Navy thing. Not that she went to Annapolis, she just—"

Jo's boxers were short to begin with, showing off those great legs that very few people ever got to see. And when she folded up her legs, those boxers rode up even more. Zane could not help but take note of that while she was talking about marines and rivalries. She stopped and looked down at her legs, confused. "Oh," she said, pulling at the sides of her boxers.

"I wasn't . . ." Zane did not want to lie. Of course, he was thinking about it. She was sitting on his bed in those short shorts, not wearing a bra. It wasn't just that though; he'd probably start thinking about it at some point in this conversation even if she was wearing a ski suit. And now, he was thinking about peeling her out of a ski suit. Which was never going to happen because they broke up, he reminded himself firmly.

She responded to his incomplete thought. "It's okay if you were. I don't want to pretend like it never happened."

Zane did not want that either. "Okay, good. Because while you were talking about your friend who committed suicide, I was thinking about how much I want to have sex with you. It's going to take me a while to get over that."

Jo's face spread into a half smile. "You know, we—we never actually had a last time."

"Yeah, we did." As much as he wanted to, he knew it was better not to act on those feelings. "We had about six months full of last times."

She nodded. "I know that you need it to be all or nothing. You told me that before."

"It's not nothing, Jo. It's just less than—"

"Than what either of us wants?" she finished for him. "And that's better somehow?"

She surprised him with that; he didn't realize this was less than what she wanted. Then he remembered. "You don't know what you want." He waited to see if she would deny that. She didn't. "Except that you don't want to lose me, and you won't. In fact, here." He picked up a pillow and dropped it on her lap. "I'll stop thinking about it, and you can talk about Hadley."

She thought about what he said for a few seconds. "Actually, I think I'm going to go." She laid the pillow aside and stood. "It's late, and we both have to work in the morning. So thanks for listening, but I should get back to my room."

There was something off about the way she said "my room," but Zane had trouble reading between the lines. He knew there was probably something unchivalrous about not offering her the real bed. It was just that it was his bed. When she was almost out of the room, he sighed and asked, "Are you sure you're okay on the air mattress?"

"Better than you would be," she said with a smile. She pulled the door closed behind her on her way out.

–

Zane must have woken up very early the next morning, because when Jo came out of her room, he was already gone. She knew that he was avoiding her and the awkwardness of their break-up. She wondered if that was part of the reason he stayed so late at work the night before. He said that she wasn't going to lose him, but she was. If she wanted to have an awkward conversation, she could have that with Carter or Allison.

He was wrong when he said that she didn't know what she wanted. She actually knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to feel the way she used to about him; she wanted everything to just be like it was when they were happy. What she didn't know was how to make that happen.

She knew that he broke up with her because she was so uncertain, of herself and of him. After the talk they had the night before, after the way he looked at her in those boxer shorts, she was certain that he did not want to be broken up. In fact, he probably wanted the exact same thing she did, for her to just feel it again. She wondered if it would make things better to point that out to him.

When she got to GD, she saw that Fargo was in his office. She went up to give him the daily rundown of security issues before he disappeared into his and Zane's secret matrix project.

He looked up from the papers on his desk when she came in. "I'm sorry about keeping Zane so late. I promise I'll try to get him back to you earlier tonight."

Jo took a second to consider the implications of this. It sounded like Zane had not told him they broke up. Then again, why would Zane tell Fargo? She tried not to read too much into it, but she couldn't help but hope this meant he was having his own doubts about this break-up. She decided not to correct Fargo either, and they went on with the rundown.

After she finished with Fargo, she assembled part of her team for a briefing. While she was talking, she noticed one member, Baxendale, was not fully with them. At one point his head drifted down and then jerked up as though he had fallen asleep. She called him out. "Need some coffee there, Champ?"

Baxendale straightened up. "I've had three cups. I just didn't get much sleep last night. I'll rally."

Jo nodded and continued. When she was done, Shepherd came up to her. "He won't rally. He's been like this for a while. Since sometime after you left, he's just been tired all the time."

What was going on with her team? "So you're saying, I left and everything just fell apart?" Something Henry said came back to her. "Wait, do you mean like a chronic fatigue kind of thing?"

Shepherd shrugged. "Yeah, it seems pretty chronic."

She looked over in Baxendale's direction. "Thanks for letting me know," she said absently.

Jo walked over to Baxendale, and he attempted to preempt a reprimand. "I swear, I'm fine."

She shook her head. "I don't think you are. I want you to see Dr. Blake." Since she could not remember quite enough about Hadley's actually medical problem, she wasn't able to give Baxendale a message for Allison on what to check for. "Actually, I'll go with you."

–

–

**Author's Note:** When I was giving myself two weeks to work on this, I forgot that I was going out of town this weekend. I don't know if I'll really be able to have this done before the new episode.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

When they got to the medical bay, Jo had Baxendale explain his symptoms to Allison. Then she added, "A member of my team recently killed herself because of . . . the thing with the neurons not communicating. And Henry said that could cause chronic fatigue too. Could he have the same problem?"

"The thing with the neurons?" Allison repeated, stumped by this description.

Jo could not be more specific than that. "Yeah, the thing that causes people to commit suicide. Hold on." She got out her phone and called Henry. He picked up quickly, and she asked him to explain what was wrong with Hadley to Allison.

Allison took the phone. After a few seconds, she said, "Oh ," with a smile, like it all made sense now. She finished up with Henry and handed Jo her phone. "Yeah, that could be causing your problem," she said to Baxendale, "I'll take a blood sample."

Jo followed Allison to the medical supplies. "Is this something I should be worried about affecting my whole team?"

Allison shook her head. "A neurotransmitter deficiency isn't exactly the kind of thing that's contagious. And there are a lot of things that could cause chronic fatigue. I'll run a full blood panel, and we'll go from there."

It was going to take a while to run all the tests, so Allison told Jo there was no point in sticking around; she would call when the results were in. Jo went back to work, but she was distracted the whole morning waiting for that call. Finally, it came.

"You were right," Allison said over the phone. "And it turns out your Hadley and Baxendale have more in common than critically low levels of norepinephrine. A few months ago, they were both treated in relation to a lab experiment gone wrong."

Jo vaguely remembered something like that. "What was the experiment?"

"It was a containment breach in the entomology labs. Hadley and Baxendale were both stung by genetically modified hornets. The only other person treated for this type of sting was—"

"Me," Jo finished for her, remembering the breach now.

"Yes," Allison confirmed. "At the time, there was nothing to suggest that the venom affected any of you differently than a normal hornet sting, but given this recent correlation, that may have been a premature diagnosis. So I would not worry about the rest of your team, but I would like to run a few tests on you. When can you get here?"

Correlation or not, Jo found it hard to believe that she had the same problem as the other two. She didn't have any of the symptoms, and she felt fine physically. She supposed it wouldn't hurt to have her blood checked out. "Give me five minutes."

–

When Zane saw Jo walking down the hallway in his direction, he turned around and hoped that she hadn't seen him. It was not his best move, he knew. It was also not a successful move. She called his name and waited for him to come back to her. "You have to stop avoiding me," she said.

He did not even bother to deny it. "Are you headed to lunch?"

"No." That was the answer Zane was hoping to get because if she was, he would pretty much have to ask her to eat with him, and it was really difficult for him to be around her right now. Hence the avoiding. She continued. "Medical bay. Allison thinks I might have issues from a bug sting I got months ago."

That did not sound good, especially in this town. "What kind of issues?"

Jo shrugged and started walking in the direction of Allison's lab. Zane watched her go, wondering if he should follow her. He decided that he did not really have a choice. As soon as he got into the lab, several steps behind Jo, he asked Allison what was wrong with her.

Allison looked back and forth between Jo and Zane. "Well, I don't know yet. That's why I wanted to check her out. But it is possible that she's suffering an adverse reaction to a neurotoxin."

"Except I'm not," Jo protested. "I don't have any of the things Henry said. Chronic fatigue, suicide, or, um, low sex drive. None of it."

Allison glanced over at Zane during the sex drive part, but she turned her attention back to Jo. "That's not an exhaustive list though. A norepinephrine deficiency can manifest in any number of ways. It could just be low energy or depression."

Jo shook her head. "I don't have those either."

"Yes, you do," Zane interjected. He did not know how he hadn't seen it before. "You're severely depressed."

She shot him a look. "No, I'm not."

He was not sure if she was just trying to hide it from Allison or if she was in deep denial. "Nothing makes you happy the way it used to, and you don't know how much longer you can go on like this? Jo, you _cried_." She kept shaking her head. "At least let her check," he said, frustrated.

Jo sighed. "I was going to. But that's not—I'm not . . ." She looked at Allison. "Are you saying you can just pump me full of this stuff and that'll fix everything?"

Allison opened her mouth, a "no" clearly forming on her lips. She pursed her lips and started again. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. First, I need to check your levels, and see if that's even your, uh, your problem here." It was obvious that she had not been aware of a problem until this conversation. That did not surprise Zane. "And we'll go from there."

Jo took off her jacket and rolled up her sleeve for the blood test. As she sat in the exam chair, she watched Zane, her mind working overtime. He imagined she was re-evaluating everything she'd been feeling since the incident.

He realized he did not really know what that incident was. He waited for Allison to come over to the testing equipment and then asked, "What kind of bug sting does this?"

"A genetically modified hornet's," she replied. "Henry's doing a chemical work-up on the venom to see how it's been altered. But right now we're just going off a few too many coincidences; we don't even know if there's anything wrong—" She stopped, probably because she did know now. "Are you and Jo okay?"

Zane wanted to answer that question, but he had no idea how. "We'll see."

Jo got up from the chair. "Now I'm hungry. Were you going to lunch?"

He thought about telling her that he was just making small talk before and that he actually had a lot of work to do. He was not sure this development really changed anything between them, but he supposed they did have some things to talk about. "Yeah. Wanna come with?"

Allison stepped out from behind her table with another syringe. "Actually, I need to take one more sample, from your locus coeruleus. It's the principal site for brain synthesis of norepinephrine and the fastest way to check for a problem."

Jo backed into the chair warily. "Where is my locus coer. . .?"

"In the brain stem. So if you could just lean forward."

Jo gave the syringe a another look before doing as Allison asked. She pulled her ponytail to the side and then held onto the armrests. Zane watched her grip tighten and her face scrunch up as the needle went in, but she did not make a sound. When it was over, she placed her hand against the back of her neck. "So that's all you need?"

"Yes. I'll call again when I have the results." Allison turned to Zane. "She is all yours. Have a good lunch."

–

Since the back of her neck was still bothering her when they got down to the parking lot, Jo let Zane drive her car, which was a very rare occurrence because he was a terrible driver. She did not know what to do with this new information that all the uncertainty she'd been experiencing for the last few months might be depression, and that it might be scientifically curable. Just like that. She looked over at Zane. "I heard what you said to Allison. The thing about we'll see. Do you think—"

He seemed to know where this was going, and he did not let her finish. "Look, I hope this is the answer to how you've been feeling and that Allison can fix it for you. But it's not our problem. Depression doesn't make you stop lov—or uh, feeling things for someone."

Jo was not sure he knew what he was talking about. "It might. I mean, it's not just you. I kinda stopped feeling things period." She tried to think of how to describe it. "It's like Desperado."

"The movie?" he asked, confused.

"No, the Eagles song. It's like I'm losing all my highs and lows." She had heard that song again recently, and it made more sense to her than it ever had before. "I think we should put our break-up on hold."

The corner of Zane's mouth twitched, like he was trying not to smile. "How do you put a break-up on hold?"

That was a good question. She realized they were already in some sort of holding pattern. So she said what she was really thinking. "You don't sleep with other women. Or date them, or . . . anything like that."

"So you expect me to wait around in some kind of limbo, not having sex until you figure out whether it's a neurotransmitter deficiency that made you stop wanting to be with me." He sounded more amused than annoyed, so that was good.

"I never stopped wanting—" She sighed. "Wanting to be with you. And I never said you couldn't have sex. I didn't want to break up. I just wanted things to change, and maybe now they will."

"Maybe," he repeated.

She knew that it was probably too soon to be talking about this. There was still a good chance this hornet sting had nothing to do with what was going on with her. It was not fair to ask him to wait on maybes. But she didn't want to lose him if she didn't have to. "But if there's a chance . . ."

"Yeah, a chance that Allison is going to fix everything that's wrong with you, and you're still going to decide that I don't make you happy."

"I can't promise that's not going to happen." She really wished she could, but there were no certainties. Those were the kind of chances you take in any relationship. "But—"

Apparently he was serious about this all or nothing thing. "Then it's better to just break up now."

_Better for who?_ Jo wanted to ask. "Fine, but just to be clear, what did you mean when you said we'll see?"

Zane seemed stumped by that for a second. "I guess I just didn't want to say it out loud. I don't want to have to tell people that we're not okay. Because I really want us to be okay."

"That's what I want too. And—" She hesitated before using the word again. "Maybe we could be. This doesn't really seem like a good time to give up."

He looked at her, taking his eyes off the road for a little bit longer than Jo was comfortable with. "Okay. You're right. We'll put the break-up on hold."

Now that she thought about it, Jo was not really sure what "on hold" would entail either. "Does that mean I can keep staying at your place?"

"Oh, now I know the real reason you didn't want to break up," he teased. "Free room and board." He considered this while taking a turn too fast. "Yeah, you can stay."

She decided to push a little. "Do I have to keep sleeping in the guest room?"

He smiled with a small laugh. He gave this some thought too. "We'll see."

–

Allison called while Jo was still at lunch to tell her that her neurotransmitter results were similar to Hadley and Baxendale's, but they couldn't do anything until they knew what it was about the hornets that caused this problem. She knew that it was a good thing that they had identified the issue and that if anyone could fix it, it would be the people at GD, but she still finished the meal on edge.

Finally, in the late afternoon, Allison and Henry were ready to tell her what they knew. Jo texted Zane, figuring he would want to be kept in the loop, but he was not in the medical bay when she got there. However, Baxendale was there, waiting patiently to find out what was wrong with him.

Henry launched into some information about the type of hornet it was "The Asian giant hornet's sting normally contains a neurotoxin called mandaratoxin that can be fatal if administered in large enough doses, even in persons who are not allergic. The way these hornets were genetically modified has altered the neurotoxin. It doesn't appear to be any known toxin."

Jo had been told the bugs in that breach were dangerous, but she had not realized they were that dangerous. "Is this new toxin fatal?"

"No," Henry said quickly. "If it was . . ." He trailed off, unsure how to phrase it.

"It would have killed us by now?" Jo guessed.

Henry nodded. "Since the stinger had to go through thick layers, you were probably only exposed to a small amount of the venom. This new toxin settles in the brain stem and inhibits the release of norepinephrine. We've developed a counteragent that should be able to reverse this."

The word "should" bothered Jo. "Is it safe?"

Allison answered. "Yeah."

That sounded more like a probably to Jo. She glanced at Baxendale, and it appeared he had taken it the same way. "I'll go first, just to make sure."

Zane came in while they were preparing the injection, which was going to have to be in the brain stem again. "They found a cure," she told him.

"Well, it won't be an immediate fix," Henry corrected. "This will help with production and release, but it will still take time for your levels to normalize."

Jo figured as much. Honestly, she preferred it that way. As much as she wanted to get better, the idea of being injected with a serum that would make her instantly happy was a little disturbing. She just hoped Zane would be willing to stick this out long enough to find out if this was really the cause of the problems in their relationship.

She sat in the exam chair and leaned forward, bracing for the injection. She moved to put her hands on the armrests at her side, but Zane took hold of her right hand. As she squeezed his hand, he squeezed back. Jo really hoped this was going to work.

–

–

**Author's Note:** This is the last full chapter, but I decided to have an epilogue, which hopefully will go up really soon-ish. And if you are knowledgeable about any of the stuff I talk about in this chapter, I apologize for the science.


	6. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_One Month Later . . ._

Jo finally, _finally_ had a house of her own again. It had been just over a year since her house was first destroyed in that rocket mishap, and this new one was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She stood on the sidewalk admiring it and taking it all in, just in case it didn't last any longer this time than it had the time before.

Zane walked up to her side. She had almost forgotten he was there. "Are we gonna go inside, or are we just going to stare at it?"

She was not sure why he thought he was included in this. "I'll go in when I'm ready," she told him. "But _you_ are not allowed inside my house."

He looked confused for a second, and then he remembered the reason for the ban. He held up his hands. "No flamethrower." He did a 360 degree turn for her. "Promise. Besides, I only did that because you refused to talk to me."

"Oh, so it was my fault?" she said sarcastically.

He shrugged. "I didn't want to have to be the one to say it, but yeah." He smiled at her. "You look excited."

There was a reason for that. "I am excited; I have a house." She gestured at it with her hands. "My own house."

"Was it really that bad staying at my place?"

"Actually, that did have its perks." Within a week of Jo getting injected with the anti-neurotoxin, he even let her back into his bed. There were definitely things she would miss about staying with him.

"So are you going to break up with me now that you don't need to use me anymore?" He was trying to be flip, but there was an anxious undertone to it.

She gave him a long look, made him sweat it a little. "No."

She turned back to her house. There was something perfect about it, some spell she was afraid of breaking. Zane cleared his throat. "When do you think you'll be ready to go inside?"

"Soon." She took a deep breath. "Now," she said, heading for the door.

He did not move from his place on the sidewalk. "And you really want me to wait out here?"

As she swung the door open, Jo glanced back in his direction. "No matches, lighters, butane torches, anything like that?"

He showed her his hands again. "No firestarting apparatuses of any kind. May I please come in?"

She nodded. The inside of the house was completely bare; her new furniture would not be delivered until later that day. It made the rooms seem smaller somehow, but Jo did not care. It also made it look open, free, full of possibilities. New start, new attitude, new-ish boyfriend.

Zane came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "How do you feel?"

She leaned back against his chest and placed her arms over his. She gave his question a lot of consideration before answering. "Happy."

–

**END**


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